MudBall
by William Pendragon
Summary: Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost over the fight for the small mining colony Rowan. With a fresh surge of troops how many more will fall? 40k,Rating may change later on.


Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40,000. I also do not necessarily endorse the actions taken by the characters in my story.

The Imperial drop ship rocked and shook on its way down to the surface. Inside Sergeant Kent's unit sat in silence, all of them sea sick from the flight. It was always like this on planet fall. PING "Five minutes till touch down," rang the pilots voice over the ships intercom. Kent looked out of the craft's six long narrow observation slots, it was cloudy outside, command had said in briefing that it was always cloudy on Rowan. The grey landing ship next to Kent's bobbed and shuttered in the drizzling rain.

"Shit" Corporal Sain cursed behind his sergeant, "their driver looks worse then ours."

"I hope your not suggesting that ours is good," Trooper Ike crowed.

"Well I have to admit that he's better than the one we had on our last planet fall," Sain replied.

"You got to be shiting me. That guy was better than this hack." Trooper Eriks interjected.

Over the ensuing argument as to who indeed was the worst pilot they ever had Sgt. Kent heard the clicking and clacking of Trooper Lowen as he half dissembled and resembled his lasrifle for the umpteenth time. All and all, Kent decided, he was taking the "Fist time gitters" better than most troopers took their first planet fall. Most men vomited or cursed uncontrollable. Noticing how nervous Trooper Lowen was Sain brook away from the argument going on behind him looked at Trooper Lowen and smiled.

"Nervous," Sain called over the squabble going on behind him.

Trooper Lowen nodded.

"The trick is to accept the fact that you're going to die on one of these rocks," Sain's words seemed harsh but to Sain it was truth, "and there's no point in fretting over where or when, we're the Cailen 1st and we're never going home."

The last part about never going home was the pseudo motto of Cailen's 1st infantry division. It was true however the 1st infantry was a strictly offensive outfit. The chance of one surviving his twenty years of service was once calculated by one of Kent's now diseased subordinates. Based on average casualties and enlistment rate, the survival rare was less than one percent. Lowen nodded slowly at Sain with a gulp.

PING "Three minute," the pilot said over the loud speaker.

Kent stood up grabbing the hand rail above his head for support.

"Alright quiet down boys," Kent said calmly.

They didn't listen, save for Sain .

"Lock it up," Kent yelled at the top of his voice. His squad immediately quieted. Then he continued in his normal, calm, smooth voice.

"In two minutes we make planet fall, there is no, I repeat no, way of being sure that we won't land in the middle of the Emperor damn war. Check your gear. Then check it again. Make sure your las-clips are charged, and your rifle is action ready," while saying this Sgt. Kent grabbed the rifle away from Trooper Lowen and screwed the barrel back on for him because he was shaking to violently to do it himself. "When the hatch opens I want you piling out of here in standard fire team formation, I don't want to loose a single one of you before the party starts."

"How many ladies can we expect to meet down there," Sain said jokingly, "once we wrap things up?"

In truth the only women likely left alive on Rowan were in the service of the Ordo Hospitaler, and they were strictly of limits. However Kent gave the same answer he had given the womanizing corporal for the fifteen years they had served together.

"Seven," Sgt. Kent replied, trying to hold back a smile.

It was an old joke and everyone laughed except for Trooper Lowen.

PING "10 seconds," the pilot said over the loud speaker.

The roar of the landing craft engine slowing the boat to a safe speed made it nearly impossible to hear.

"Sain watch the kid," Kent yelled over the engine.

The brown haired corporal nodded and with that the door opened, slammed into the mucky ground and splattered mud across the pant legs of Trooper Geitz and Trooper Darol who stood in front of the hatch.

"Pile out," Kent screamed while slapping the top Sain's helmet.

The mud was deep and sticky making it difficult to walk. Kent surveyed the area. All around squad where pilling out of their respective transports, some had already begun to fall in with their platoons. Many guardsmen fell into the mud as they struggled to traverse the landscape which was nothing but a long see of mud in every direction. Off in the distance Kent could see a Chaos flag flying.

"Hey Sarge," he heard a deep voice behind him say; "I almost thought you were going to miss all the fun."

Kent spun on his heel; which was difficult in the sludge, to see Major Hector. The Major was tall, even taller then Sgt. Kent and even more muscular than he was tall. Kent liked the Major, he had a good head in tight spots and seemed to take a genuine interest in all his men's well being and even took time to become well acquainted with all of his subordinate officers.

"How could I possibly miss this party Major," Kent replied.

"No idea how any one could stand to miss this," the major replied.

To Kent's mind the Majors one fault was that he seemed to like war a little too much. It wasn't that Kent disliked his duty in the Guard it was just that he thought a certain solemnity needed to be attached to combat.

"Our Platoon's been assigned as A1; Expect to do some running soon," Hector reported his outfit's orders with an almost joyous tone. To Hector nothing was worse than squatting in a muddy hole waiting for the war to come to him this made their assignment more exciting.

"Alright let's hit the trench," Hector called with the excitement renewed in his voice. Hector's squad headed out towards the trench, Kent's squad followed, then the rest of the Platoon filed in behind them.

"It's going to be a long war," Sain groaned as he trudged through the mire.

General Athon sat in the chair in his, in his office, located next to his quarters on the Emperor Class battleship the _Emperors Divine Guidance. _ He leaned back in his chair, the buttons on his dress uniform was undone revealing an olive drab undershirt. He swirled a glass of red wine around in his hand while reviewing a data slate containing the regimental reports of the massive planet fall troop surge that had undergone that day. What he read pleased him. It was hell getting the higher ups to release more troops to him, but they had little choice after the fight for Rowan had reached the two years marker. Two years! Hundreds of thousands of casualties over a small mining planet on the edge of the star cluster. Thinking about this the General grimaced. _It's about to get a lot bloodier, _he thought. He took a sip from his glass. This is the only way to fight a war he had decided long time ago: a warm office, a comfortable chair, a cool glass of wine, All the while the war was nothing more than dots on a data slate. The General was not a coward despite this. He had spent his time slogging through the ranks while fighting in hundreds of battles. Still this he preferred to explosions and lasfire. Darren, General Athon's aid suddenly burst in the room slamming the door into the small table next to it knocking the General's bottle of red wine on to the floor. It rolled towards the General's desk leaving a red stain on the carpet his desk sat on. Darren froze the last officer he served as an aid for would have had him shot for something like that. General Athon sighed, got up from his chair took two strides over to the bottle and picked it up then poured what was left of it into his class.

"Yes, Darren," he said taking a sip from his glass.

"Sir the heretics are making a massive push on the trenches as we speak," the young aid blurted out; breathless from the run from the war room to the General's office, 'Possibly a wave of more than fifty percent of the enemy's estimated forces."

The General nearly spat his drink out.

"Keep your rifles on half power," Kent barked at his men, "remember short controlled burst, aim high at their heads, or low at their ankles. And don't shoot till I start."

Kent's squad knelt out behind the trench readying their weapons to fire. The Chaos force advancing on them was intimidating: a wave of soldiers as far across as Kent could see. They screamed and whooped as they advanced. Next to him Kent heard familiar sound of vomit escaping a nervous guardsmen's mouth. Kent didn't look but he assumed it was Trooper Lowen. The enemy troops hit the line of razor wire that had bean dropped in by four carriers earlier that day, it was laid out 300 hundred meters from the trench. The heretics struggled and fell in the razor barrier. As a result their advance came to a near halt.

"Open up!" Kent screamed.

The fire that came from the guard's line was a withering, solid wall of lasfire. Kent aimed his lasrifle and fired a bolt into the nearest heretic he could see. The bolt punched through the traitor's right eye spraying gore and brains onto the troopers behind him. Kent fired another beam taking one's ankles out causing him to fall face first into the razor wire tearing him to shreds. Next to him Trooper Geitz and Trooper Dorel operated a heavy bolter spraying a constant stream of bullets into the traitor line. The bodies piled up under the withering fire of the heavy gun. Quickly the corpses of the fallen formed a bridge of sorts over the razor wire and the advance took back its full force.

"Pour it on," Kent heard Cpl. Sain holler.

Kent squeezed back the trigger of is Cadian pattern lasrifle and let it spray full auto into the on coming mob. Roughly twenty meters from the trench line the advancing cultist halted, turned and began to retreat.

"Sergeant we're following those bastards home," Kent heard Major Hector say over his squad link. The major had access to the frequencies of all the com links in his platoon.

"Run 'em down," The Sergeant yelled as he dropped down into the trench and quickly scrambled over the following wall and began to charge across no mans land. Kent's squad followed after him.

As Sain dropped down into the trench he looked over his shoulder to see Trooper Geitz and Trooper Dorel struggling to help a soldier with a leg wound out of the trench. Sain spun and around ripped gun from Geitz's hand and dropped it on the trench floor.

"Ditch him, he can take care of himself" Sain barked at them while shoving a deserted lasfrile into his chest. "Now move your asses we're falling behind.

Kent Ran full tilt shooting his lasrifle from his hip. He caught one in the ankle, and slashed the cultist's neck as he ran by. Before the reached they out skirts of the hive city that the cultist had taken over nearly the entire retreating cultist force had been cut down.

The Hive wasn't well fortified and the remaining defenders stationed out side of it in trenches where quickly put down under fire from the Cailen's 1st assult. In the next few minutes squads began to regroup and subordinate officers began to meet with their superiors.

Kent stood in the make shift command scent that had been quickly set up in a pill box near the city's main gate.

"Sgt. Kent," Colonel Eliwood Phare said, "you're in charge of second platoon's recon team?"

"Yes, sir" the sergeant replied stiffly, the upper class airs the Colonel put on always made him feel uncomfortable, "my squad specializes in urban infiltration and scouting.

"Good," the Colonel said while leading him over to a sewage grate witch was being torched open, "we need a soldier with your expertise."

Well I hope you enjoyed Ch.1, I hope to have a new chapter out every moth or so.

And as always Please, Please leave me a review.


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